Kenyan President William Ruto said Wednesday that he will not sign a controversial finance bill, backing down in the face of mass protests that swept the country and reportedly left at least 23 people dead.

“Having reflected on the continuing conversation regarding the content of the finance bill 2024, and listening keenly to the people of Kenya who have said loudly that they want nothing to do with this Finance Bill 2024, I concede, and therefore I will not sign the 2024 finance bill,” Ruto said during a television address Wednesday.

“The people have spoken,” Ruto said. “Following the passage of the bill, the country experienced widespread expression of dissatisfaction with the bill as passed, regrettably resulting in the loss of life, the destruction of property and desecration of constitutional institutions.”

Protesters in Kenya say they will go ahead with a “One Million People March” on Thursday despite Ruto accepting their key demand of scrapping the bill. A poster shared widely on social media calls on all generations to return to the streets across the country on Thursday and block roads leading to the capital Nairobi.

Some protesters have also called for people to occupy the State House in Nairobi.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has spoken with Ruto since the clashes to urge restraint. According to a State Department readout of their call, Blinken “underscored the importance of security forces demonstrating restraint and refraining from violence and encouraged prompt investigations into allegations of human rights abuses.”

Kenya, a nation often praised for its stability, had seen escalating protests over the bill, which the government introduced to rein in public debt.

Last week, the government scrapped some tax increases, including a proposed 16% value-added tax on bread along with taxes on motor vehicles, vegetable oil and mobile money transfers. But the concessions were not enough to quell protests amid the rising cost of living.

On Tuesday they turned deadly when security forces fired teargas and live ammunition at protesters.

At least 23 people died in the violence, according to Kenya’s Police Reforms Working Group, (PRWG) a civil society organization.

The PRWG alleged in a statement published by Amnesty International Kenya that police targeted young, unarmed protesters outside the parliament, with the violence continuing into the night. They added that “reports show police shot several people in Githurai, Nairobi, one over 40 times — between 10 p.m. and 1 a.m., way after the protest ended.”

This was in contrast to details given by Ruto, who said in his speech that six people died.

“I send my condolences to the families of those who lost their loved ones in this very unfortunate manner,” Ruto added.

“There is need for us as a nation to pick up from here and go into the future,” Ruto said, adding that he would hold an engagement with the young people at the forefront of the protests to hear their ideas and proposals.

The Law Society of Kenya is calling for the resignation of Kenya’s inspector general of police and the Nairobi regional commander over officers allegedly shooting protesters.

The Law Society also said the police “abducted” several prominent social media users connected to the protests, and six people remain missing.

Ruto’s change of heart came as a surprise to some who observed his hardline stance just a day earlier.

During a nationwide address after the parliament was set alight, Ruto said the events on Tuesday were a grave threat to “national security” and that the conversation around the bill had been “hijacked by dangerous people.”

Kenyan analyst Herman Manyora said withdrawing the bill much earlier could have saved the lives lost on Tuesday.

The International Criminal Court on Wednesday convicted an al Qaeda-linked leader of crimes against humanity and war crimes that took place in Timbuktu, northern Mali.

Al Hassan Ag Abdoul Aziz Ag Mohamed Ag Mahmoud, who was a senior member of the Islamic Police, was recruited by al Qaeda leaders, the ICC said in a statement.

The Islamic Police played a “pivotal role” in the system that al Qaeda, alongside Islamist group Ansar Dine, put in place to commit crimes against humanity and war crimes in Timbuktu between April 2012 and May 2013, the ICC said.

Al Hassan was convicted by majority of directly committing, contributing to, or aiding and abetting crimes against humanity of torture and war crimes of torture and outrages upon personal dignity, the ICC confirmed.

The court, in the Dutch city of The Hague, acquitted him of crimes related to rape, sexual slavery, forced marriage and attacking protected objects due to insufficient evidence that he was responsible, the statement said.

The ICC said that 2,196 victims participated in the trial proceedings. Across 195 hearings, 7,896 documents were recorded and 13,275 items of evidence were submitted, the court said.

Al Hassan will remain in detention until he is sentenced in a separate hearing. Parties have 30 days to appeal the conviction.

They carved out a large portion of the region and began instituting their own laws.

They banned music, smoking, drinking and watching sports on television, and destroyed historic tombs and shrines in the north.

Public executions, amputations, floggings and other inhumane punishments were also common, the United Nations said at the time.

Former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez has been sentenced to 45 years in prison and given an $8 million fine by a US judge for drug trafficking offenses.

He has previously denied the charges against him and at his sentencing on Wednesday insisted that he is innocent and was “wrongly and unjustly accused.”

In March, a jury in New York found Hernandez guilty on three drug trafficking charges after a two-week trial in Manhattan federal court. He denied the charges.

He was extradited from Honduras after the US Department of Justice filed three drug-trafficking and firearms related charges against him in 2022.

Prosecutors had accused Hernández, 55, of conspiring with drug cartels during his tenure as they moved more than 400 tons of cocaine through Honduras toward the United States.

In exchange, prosecutors said, Hernández received millions of dollars in bribes that he used to fuel his rise in Honduran politics.

Hernández was president of Honduras from 2014 until 2022. During his years in office, he “protected and enriched the drug traffickers in his inner circle,” the Justice Department said, citing his use of executive power to support extraditions to the US of certain drug traffickers “who threatened his grip on power” while “promising drug traffickers who paid him and followed his instructions that they would remain in Honduras.”

Prosecutors also said that members of the conspiracy in which Hernández participated relied on the Honduran National Police to protect cocaine shipments as they moved through the country.

In a statement, US Attorney General Merrick Garland said Hernández “abused his position as president of Honduras to operate the country as a narco-state where violent drug traffickers were allowed to operate with virtual impunity, and the people of Honduras and the United States were forced to suffer the consequences.”

Beside a desk scattered with soldering pieces, loose wires and electronic parts, Choi’s computer screen tracks wind conditions and the GPS location of some unlikely parcels: massive “smart” balloons he has sent floating into North Korea.

For many years, South Korean activists and North Korean defectors have sent balloons to the North, loaded with propaganda material criticizing dictator Kim Jong Un and USB sticks filled with K-pop songs and South Korean television shows – all strictly prohibited in the impoverished, highly isolated nation.

In response, North Korean authorities have sent more than 1,000 balloons toward the South since May carrying trash, waste and worms – fueling tensions as Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korea’s leader, warned of “trouble” ahead.

In 2020, South Korea passed a law criminalizing the sending of anti-North Korean propaganda leaflets over the border as the previous liberal government in Seoul pushed for engagement with Pyongyang.

But many campaigners defied the ruling before it was struck down by a court last year, which called the law an excessive restriction on free speech, in response to a complaint filed by North Korean defector-activists in the South.

Choi, co-founder of the Committee for Reforming and Opening North Korea, is among the North Korean defectors who have vowed to continue sending balloons to their homeland.

The balloons assembled by Choi’s group from their Seoul apartment base are a step up from rudimentary balloons that randomly scatter their contents when they crash or pop.

Fitted with GPS trackers, the activists can monitor these next generation “smart” balloons in real time on journeys that often span hundreds of kilometers. The group once tracked one of its balloons that drifted all the way to China, according to its data.

The group’s oblong-shaped balloons are about 12 to 13 meters (about 40 to 42 feet) long, made of plastic and filled with hydrogen, Choi said. They carefully chose the plastic’s thickness so it can both endure the wind and allow some hydrogen to naturally leak through, helping control the balloons’ altitude, he added.

The sensors and small circuit boards attached to the balloons help the balloons travel at a certain altitude and for a certain distance. “If the balloons float too high over 4,000 meters, the dispenser won’t work properly so we keep an extra bag of leaflets to drop when it reaches too high in altitude,” Choi said. “It’s programmed to release the hydrogen gas depending on the altitude.”

“I believe North Korea can change when the deification of Kim Jong Un is cracked, and sending these smart balloons is the way to achieve that,” Choi added.

“I feel very proud that we have contributed to dismantling the idolization of Kim Jong Un.”

3D-printed parts

The smart balloons sent by Choi’s group carry a number of different payloads, including some that are automated.

In one version, the balloons carry a small, makeshift loudspeaker that looks like a camping lantern, held in place by zip ties and glue. Attached to a cushion, battery pack and a parachute, it blares propaganda as it floats to the ground, with one message declaring: “North Korea can survive only if the Workers’ Party is abolished.”

The balloons are sometimes fitted with an automated flyer-dispensing device. They can carry about 1,500 propaganda leaflets – which the dispenser spits out rapidly with the help of a timer and an altitude-adjusting device.

“We devised a method to disperse the leaflets over a large area, covering 50 to 300 kilometers (about 31 to 186 miles), making it very difficult for North Korean authorities to collect them all,” Choi said. “With our system, we can control the leaflets to fall every 300 meters or every kilometer, making sure more people can see them.”

These features allow the group more control over their devices than the typical balloons used by other activists. For example, smart balloons are designed to begin spitting out leaflets at specific points based on their wind speed and direction, Choi said – purportedly allowing them to distribute within target areas. They can also control the frequency of the leaflets’ distribution.

While Choi buys some parts for the devices, he uses 3D printers to make the others. He credits his engineering studies at a North Korean university before his escape to the South – and YouTube videos and the rest of his group – for helping him improve upon the existing balloons being sent North, before setting up the organization in 2013.

And this isn’t his full-time job; he works elsewhere in the daytime, comes to the apartment after work, makes 3D-printed parts, then assembles them for up to six hours a day. Each smart balloon costs about $700 to make, he said.

Choi’s motivation, he said, is his family still living in North Korea. And he bristled at those in South Korea who have urged the activist groups to stop.

“To those who criticize our activities, it’s like saying, ‘Let’s help maintain the dictatorship in South Korea,’” he said, referring to decades of authoritarianism in Seoul before the South’s transition to democracy in the 1980s.

Rising tensions

The balloon feud has seen tensions heighten between the two Koreas, which technically remain at war – an armistice ended the Korean War that split the peninsula in 1953 but no formal peace treaty was ever signed.

Relations between the two countries thawed somewhat in 2017 and 2018, allowing some South Korean elements, including parts of its pop culture, to seep into the hermit nation.

But the situation in North Korea deteriorated in the following years as leader Kim ramped up weapons testing in defiance of United Nations sanctions and diplomatic talks fell apart, prompting strict rules to snap back into place in the North.

Meanwhile, both nations are drawing closer to their respective partners – with North Korea recently signing a defense agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin and South Korea stepping up cooperation with Japan and the United States.

On Tuesday, after South Korea detected the latest batch of 350 trash balloons from North Korea, the country’s military warned it could restart loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts at the border – something it hasn’t done since 2018.

In past years, Seoul has used giant speakers to play propaganda and music across the heavily militarized border – including news reports and K-pop group Big Bang’s hit song “Bang Bang Bang.”

“Our military is ready to immediately start anti-North Korea propaganda broadcasts and will operate with flexibility according to the strategical and operational situation,” said South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, adding that whether it resumes the loudspeakers is “up to North Korea’s actions.”

Younis lays disorientated on a green mattress in Nasser Hospital, in southern Gaza. His long brown eyelashes rest delicately on his pale sunken face, as he drifts in and out of sleep.

The 9-year-old Palestinian boy lies in his mother’s arms, clearly wasted from severe malnutrition and suffering from dehydration. His blue jogging bottoms hang off his emaciated legs, as his tiny ribcage protrudes from his billowy orange T-shirt.

Two months ago, the family was forced to flee the southern city of Rafah as Israel ramped up its attacks there. These days, they struggle to survive, living along the polluted coastline of Asda’a — near the Al-Mawasi tent camp — where they cannot find enough food, water, or even shade from the Gaza heat.

“We have to keep moving from one area to the other because of the war and the invasion… Life is difficult,” his mother said. “We don’t even have a tent over our heads.”

And as Israel continues its siege on Gaza, preventing aid groups getting enough food into the enclave, parents say they have no choice but to watch their children starve to death. More than eight months of bombardment has shredded infrastructure, wiped out communities and laid waste to entire neighborhoods. Sanitation systems — already stressed by water shortages from extreme heat — have been heavily destroyed, according to the UN, diminishing access to clean water.

A report published Tuesday by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), which assesses global food insecurity and malnutrition, warned that almost all of Gaza will face famine within the next three months.

The UN’s food agency earlier warned that southern Gaza could soon see the same “catastrophic levels of hunger” recorded previously in the north, where Israel concentrated its military offensive in the early days of the war.

At least 34 children have already died of malnutrition in Gaza, the government media office reported on June 22. The true number could be higher, as limited access to Gaza has impeded aid agencies’ efforts to fully assess the crisis there. More than 50,000 children require treatment for acute malnutrition, the UN’s agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA) said earlier this month.

Israel launched its military offensive in Gaza after the Hamas-led October 7 attacks on southern Israel, in which at least 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 others were abducted.

Israeli attacks in Gaza have since killed 37,658 Palestinians and injured another 86,237 people, according to Gaza health officials.

Severe water shortages

As Younis suffers in his mother’s arms in Gaza’s south, children in the north have been dealing with food shortages even longer. In the Jabalya refugee camp, they queue at a water truck, beads of sweat rolling down their faces, as they weave through the rubble-filled streets.

Dozens of other Gazans crowd together to access water as aid workers nearby distribute thick, steaming red soup from large saucepans.

Israel insists there is “no limit” on the amount of aid that can enter Gaza, but its inspection regime on trucks, restrictions on land routes and increased bombardment means relief is barely trickling in. Even when aid enters the besieged territory, the risk of hungry Palestinians scrambling over convoys hampers distribution efforts. UN Secretary General António Guterres recently warned the absence of police authorities in Gaza during the conflict had led to “total lawlessness.”

Earlier this year, the UN warned that Israel is creating an “entirely man-made disaster” in Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has  denied allegations by the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor that he has used “starvation of civilians as a method of warfare.”

“The only water we have is what we get as aid. People are suffering as a result, it is indescribable,” said one civilian named Hassan Kalash. “We are ill and don’t have the strength to transport the water… The water pipe is broken. We do not have water infrastructure.”

The UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has accused Israeli authorities of obstructing humanitarian access to northern Gaza. In the first three weeks of June, 36 trucks carrying aid —  which were facilitated by Israel — were allowed to reach Gaza, while another 35 were either denied access, impeded or canceled due to logistical, operational or security reasons.

The impact on the ground is visceral. In Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in central Gaza, 5-year-old Razan wears a gold ring on her finger, which is covered in red sores. The Palestinian girl is sprawled on a trolley in the central Gaza facility, her grey eyes weary with exhaustion.

‘Waiting for them to die, one by one’

Newborn babies and pregnant women are among the most at risk of malnutrition and dehydration in Gaza, according to aid agencies and health workers. Undernourished mothers are more likely to give birth prematurely, with newborns dying because they weigh too little.

At the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, doctors were unable to keep baby Amal alive just four days after her birth.

“Everyone in these beds today is at risk of dying. We are waiting for them to die one by one,” he added, his voice quivering with grief. “We have no life.”

Around 250 patients are receiving treatment for malnutrition at the hospital, and there are only two functioning stabilization centers for severely malnourished children in Gaza, OCHA reported earlier this month, endangering almost 3,000 children, who were receiving treatment for acute malnutrition in the south prior to the military escalation in Rafah.

As hunger worsens and parts of the enclave hurtle towards widespread famine, aid agencies have repeatedly called for the opening of land crossings into Gaza, which they say are the most effective way of getting relief into the strip. A US-built floating pier designed to bring in aid in by sea has been beset by problems — from unfavorable sea conditions to distribution issues once the aid ins transferred on land — failing to make a meaningful difference to the crisis.

“My son will not be able to survive this,” he said. “I call on the American president Joe Biden… to intervene,” added Madi, “to save this child who has nothing at all to do with any political conflict.”

But just days later, the boy died. With other young children to provide for, Madi’s life as a parent is full of stress.

“It’s very hard to feed a family of 10 in these difficult times.”

The outgoing Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte will become the next NATO secretary general, the alliance said Wednesday.

His appointment comes after Romanian President Klaus Iohannis – his only rival for the position – announced last week that he had withdrawn from the running.

The term of current secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, runs out on October 1.

Rutte will inherit a NATO that is racing to bolster its own security while also supporting Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s invasion. The alliance is walking a tightrope of rearming and increasing military spending while avoiding provoking Moscow and escalating what is already the deadliest war on European soil in decades.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange walked free for the first time in 12 years after a US judge signed off on his unexpected plea deal on Wednesday morning.

Assange walked out of the courtroom as a free man into the bright Saipan sunshine, raising one hand to a gaggle of the world’s press before departing by car for the airport where he caught a flight to the Australian capital Canberra.

Speaking outside the court, Assange’s US lawyer Barry Pollack said he had “suffered tremendously in his fight for free speech and freedom of the press.”

“The prosecution of Julian Assange is unprecedented in the 100 years of the Espionage Act,” Pollack told reporters. “Mr. Assange revealed truthful, newsworthy information … We firmly believe that Mr. Assange never should have been charged under the Espionage Act and engaged in (an) exercise that journalists engage in every day.”

In a stunning turn of events, the 52-year-old Australian was released from a high-security prison in London on Monday afternoon and had already boarded a private jet to leave the United Kingdom before the world even knew of his agreement with the US government.

He appeared in a US courtroom on the Northern Mariana Islands to formalize the agreement, officially pleading guilty to conspiring unlawfully to obtain and disseminate classified information over his alleged role in one of the largest breaches of classified material in US military history.

“I am, in fact, guilty of the charge,” Assange told the court in Saipan.

The remote Pacific island chain is a US territory, located around 6,000 kilometers (3,700 miles) west of Hawaii.

Assange – who has long held a deep mistrust of the US, even going so far as accusing it of allegedly plotting his assassination – was hesitant about stepping foot in the continental US, and so prosecutors asked for all proceedings to take place in a day in a US federal court based in Saipan, the largest island and capital of the Northern Mariana Islands.

Justice Department prosecutors also said the court on the islands made logistical sense as it is closer to Australia, where Assange will ultimately travel to following the conclusion of his legal battle.

Kevin Rudd, Australia’s Ambassador to Washington and former prime minister who helped facilitate negotiations with the US, watched proceedings in the courtroom.

‘I hope there will be some peace restored’

At the start of the plea deal hearing the judge reminded Assange that he was back in the United States and that this court was the “smallest, youngest, and furthest from nation’s capital.” Assange looked relaxed in the courtroom, wearing a black jacket and brown tie, while next to his attorneys.

Asked by the judge, Honorable Ramona Manglona, to describe what he had done to be charged, Assange said: “Working as a journalist, I encouraged my source to provide information that was said to be classified in order to publish that information. I believe that the First Amendment protected that activity… I believe the First Amendment and the Espionage Act are in contradiction with each other, but I accept that it would be difficult to win such a case given all these circumstances.”

In her sentencing, the judge said Assange was entitled to a credit of time served for his incarceration at a British prison.

“It appears that your 62 months imprisonment is fair and reasonable,” Manglona said. “You will be able to walk out of this courtroom a free man. I hope there will be some peace restored.”

The judge told Assange that “timing matters” and she would have been less inclined to accept a plea 10 years ago. She also said there was no personal victim in this case — Assange’s action did not lead to any known physical injury.

For years, the US argued that the self-appointed champion of free speech endangered lives and posed a threat to national security.

Following his release, the US Department of Justice said in a statement that Assange is barred from returning to the US without permission, “pursuant to the plea agreement.”

Assange and his whistleblower website rose to global prominence in 2010 after a string of leaks from former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The website posted a video showing a US military helicopter firing on and killing two journalists and several Iraqi civilians in 2007. Several months later, it disclosed more than 90,000 classified Afghan war documents dating back to 2004.

Later in 2010, he was wanted in Sweden to answer questions over allegations of sexual assault that had emerged.

Two years later, Assange sought political asylum within the Ecuadorian embassy in west London. He remained there for almost seven years until the Metropolitan Police entered his safe haven in 2019 acting on an extradition warrant from the US Justice Department. British officers moved in after Ecuador withdrew his asylum and invited authorities into the embassy, citing Assange’s bad behavior.

He had originally been facing 18 criminal charges relating to his organization’s release of massive troves of sensitive information into the public domain.

Instead, as part of the agreement brokered with the Justice Department, Assange entered a guilty plea to a single criminal charge.

His punishment was 62 months in prison, but he will not spend any time behind bars in the US, as the sentence equates to the five years he fought extradition while incarcerated at London’s Belmarsh prison.

The deal brokered with the US is the final act of a 14-year legal drama that has spanned continents, though it was not immediately clear why it reached a resolution now.

Australian officials have been pushing diplomatic angles for some time. It was widely thought that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese had raised Assange’s case when he visited the White House last October.

Speaking in parliament on Wednesday, the Australian leader said he was “pleased that (Assange) was on his way home to Australia to reunite with his family.”

“This outcome has been the product of careful, patient and determined work,” Albanese said, adding “this is what standing up for Australians around the world looks like.”

“Regardless of your views about his activities and they will be varied, Mr. Assange’s case has dragged on for too long. I have said repeatedly that there was nothing to be gained by his continued incarceration,” Albanese said.

US President Joe Biden had in recent months alluded to a possible deal pushed by Australian government officials to return Assange to Australia. However, the administration distanced itself from the developments on Tuesday.

Regardless, Assange’s wife, Stella, said Tuesday that she was “elated” at the news her husband was free from Belmarsh.

“Frankly, it’s just incredible. I don’t know. It kind of feels like it’s not real,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today program. She spoke from Australia, where she flew with their two children on Sunday morning before Assange’s release. She said she had not yet told their young children why they had traveled to their father’s homeland.

He said Assange is “excited to be a free man again” and looking forward to doing normal things he hasn’t been able to do after being held in a maximum-security prison for the last five years. He said his brother enjoys Australian bird watching, swimming in the ocean and sharing a meal with his wife and children.

“The work that WikiLeaks and the work that Julian did – it’s historical now,” Shipton said.

“The collateral murder video that exposed Reuters journalists being killed by a helicopter gunship in Baghdad. I think those are historical moments, historical publications that went all around the world, torture in Guantanamo Bay, as well as corruption in the banking system, toxic waste dumping. This is a legacy of WikiLeaks and Julian Assange,” he added.

Once the WikiLeaks founder touches down in Australia, one thing on his to-do list will be paying off his government for the ride home. Assange will owe $520,000 for the charter flight, according to the international campaign that called for his release.

To cover the purported expenses as well as other funds for his recovery, the campaign has launched an appeal, asking supporters for donations.

The trial of Evan Gershkovich, the first American journalist to be arrested on espionage charges in Russia since the Cold War, began Wednesday morning in a closed hearing that has been condemned by his newspaper and the United States.

Gershkovich, 32, was arrested while reporting for the Wall Street Journal, which he joined in January 2022, just weeks before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. While many newsrooms subsequently pulled their reporters out of Russia, Gershkovich remained, covering the war and how it was changing life in the country.

The trial is taking place in the city of Yekaterinburg, where he was detained more than a year ago and accused of spying for the CIA. Footage on Wednesday morning showed Gershkovich inside a glass court cage, his head shaved, ahead of the trial.

Gershkovich, the US government, and the WSJ have vehemently denied the charges against him. Within two weeks of his arrest in March 2023, the US State Department designated him as wrongfully detained and called for his immediate release.

The trial of Gershkovich, the American-born son of Soviet-era emigres to the US, has highlighted the extent to which Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has harmed relations between Moscow and Washington.

His hearing began at 11 a.m. local time (2 a.m. ET) in Sverdlovsk Regional Court in Yekaterinburg. In their indictment, Russian prosecutors said that “under instructions from the CIA” and “using painstaking conspiratorial methods,” Gershkovich “was collecting secret information” about a Russian tank factory.

No reporters, friends, family members, or US embassy staff will be allowed into the courtroom during his trial, which is expected to last months. If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison.

“We’re not holding our breath, it could take weeks or months. And we don’t have much trust in the Russian justice system,” said Sauer, who exchanged letters with Gershkovich before the American reporter was transferred to Yekaterinburg.

“Realistically, we believe that Russia will convict him because they arrested him in the end because he’s a bargaining chip for Moscow, for Putin to be exchanged.”

Ahead of the trial, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said the US “certainly” does not expect Gershkovich to have “a free and fair trial given that these are charges that never should have been brought in the first place.”

Miller said embassy personnel were traveling to Yekaterinburg, more than 800 miles from Moscow, and would attempt to attend the trial.

Since his arrest, Gershkovich has been held in Moscow’s notorious Lefortovo prison, spending almost every hour of the day in a small cell as his pre-trial detention period was extended several times. He has passed the time by writing letters to his friends and family, his parents, Ella Milman and Mikhail Gershkovich, said in a recent interview with the WSJ.

“He’s managing the best way he can, in a tiny space, one hour walking outside – six steps, six steps, six steps,” Milman said, drawing a small courtyard with her finger. “He’s been exercising, meditating, reading a lot, answering letters. His knowledge of the Russian language and the culture helped him adjust to the situation.”

In a letter to WSJ readers, his family said the past year has been “unimaginable.”

“It has felt like holding our breath. We have been living with a constant ache in our hearts thinking about Evan every moment of every day,” the family wrote.

Political ‘pawns’

After Russian prosecutors approved Gershkovich’s indictment earlier this month, WSJ Editor-in-Chief Emma Tucker said he was facing a “false and baseless” charge.

“Russia’s latest move toward a sham trial is, while expected, deeply disappointing and still no less outrageous. Evan has spent 441 days wrongfully detained in a Russian prison for simply doing his job. Evan is a journalist. The Russian regime’s smearing of Evan is repugnant, disgusting and based on calculated and transparent lies. Journalism is not a crime. Evan’s case is an assault on free press,” Tucker said in a statement.

In his State of the Union address in March – with Gershkovich’s parents in the audience – US President Joe Biden said his administration was working “around the clock to bring home Evan” and other “Americans being unjustly detained all around the world.”

The number of Americans being held in Russia has swelled in recent years. Paul Whelan, a former US Marine, was arrested in Moscow in December 2018 and sentenced to 16 years in prison in 2020 on espionage charges, which he has consistently and vehemently denied. The US State Department has also declared him wrongfully detained.

Brittney Griner – the basketball star who used to play in Russia during the WNBA offseason – was detained in Russia and sentenced to nine years in prison after authorities found cannabis oil in her luggage.

After spending nearly 300 days behind bars, Griner was freed in a prisoner swap for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, nicknamed the “Merchant of Death” by his accusers. A former Soviet military officer, Bout was serving a 25-year sentence in the US on charges of conspiring to kill Americans, acquire and export anti-aircraft missiles and provide material support to a terrorist organization – charges he and the Kremlin denied.

In an interview with American right-wing pundit Tucker Carlson, Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested the Kremlin could be willing to free Gershkovich in exchange for Vadim Krasikov, a former colonel from Russia’s domestic spy organization who was convicted of assassinating a former Chechen fighter in broad daylight in Berlin in 2019.

“Listen, I’ll tell you: sitting in one country, a country that is an ally of the United States, is a man who, for patriotic reasons, eliminated a bandit in one of the European capitals,” Putin said.

Asked by the WSJ whether she felt her son is being used as a political pawn, Gershkovich’s mother Ella Milman said “definitely.”

Her husband, Mikhail, said: “We know that he is innocent of what he’s being accused of. He’s a journalist.”

This story has been updated with additional developments.

Pollsters were surprised by the burst of populism in 2016, but many now think they shouldn’t have been. In the United States and United Kingdom, swaths of voters in deprived regions – places “left behind” by globalization – were given the chance to stick it to the system, and they took it. Why was anyone surprised?

Pollsters have now been surprised by another trend. In this month’s European Parliament elections, far-right parties performed predictably well – but especially, and unexpectedly, among young people. A few years ago, “Generation Climate” – thought to be unquestionably liberal and progressive – were voting mostly green. But now, their vote has helped far-right parties capture one in four seats in Brussels. What happened?

Perhaps the “left behind” is not only a geographical phenomenon, but generational.

Gen-Z – those born between 1995 and 2012 – has been baptized in crises: first the financial, then the eurozone, then of the pandemic and now of war in Europe. More and more young people believe they will have harder lives than their parents. Why should a left-behind generation be less vulnerable to the lure of populism than left-behind places?

Roberto Foa, co-director of the Centre for the Future of Democracy at the University of Cambridge, a leading researcher of youth dissatisfaction with democracy, sees “two big divides” in Western societies: “The wealth divide between economically successful and left-behind regions, and the intergenerational divide in life opportunities.”

Youth support for far-right parties is being felt in several European countries. In Germany, the Alternative for Germany (AfD), won 16% of the under-25 vote in the EU elections – tripling its share in that demographic from the previous vote in 2019. Among French voters under 34, the National Rally (RN) was the most popular party, with 32% of the vote – a 10-point rise compared to 2019. In Poland, 30% of under-30 voters supported the far-right Confederation party, up from 18.5% in 2019. Far-right parties enjoyed a similar uptick in support in the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Austria, and continued to do well in Italy.

How alarmed – and surprised – should mainstream parties be?

Generation, not geography

Consider these policy proposals. Young people will pay no income tax. If they start a business, they will be exempt from corporation tax for five years. Students working part-time will have their wages topped up by the state, which will also build 100,000 units of student housing. They can also travel by train for free.

You’d be forgiven for thinking this must be the platform of the far left. But no: This was RN doyenne Marine Le Pen’s offer in the 2022 French presidential election, which she narrowly lost. Young people, unsurprisingly, loved it. Just under 50% of 25-to-34-year-olds who cast a vote opted for Le Pen, compared to just 41% of the general population and 29% of voters over 70. Whereas the “gray vote” took Donald Trump to the White House and Britain from the EU, it kept the French far right at bay.

That may soon change. After his Renaissance party was trounced by the far-right in the EU elections, President Emmanuel Macron called a snap parliamentary election, which could result in Jordan Bardella, the RN’s 28-year-old leader, becoming France’s prime minister next month.

For Arthur Prevot, manager of the RN’s youth wing in Paris, this is great news. Macron’s presidency has failed to deliver for young people, he says.

Jonathan Verbeken, a deputy RN candidate in Paris’ 15th district, said the main reason he joined the party was because, “we see people suffering daily, struggling to make ends meet. We see a deplorable situation in France, specifically with security and immigration. We want to react to that.”

To many older voters, the RN remains a terrifying prospect. Despite its years-long effort to “normalize,” previous generations remember its antisemitic, neofascist origins.

But young voters appear less concerned by these roots, says Simon Schnetzer, author of a recent survey of Germany’s youth.

The lack of historical baggage, coupled with the strange death of center-left parties in many parts of Europe, has allowed the far right to appear respectable and armed with economic solutions to young people’s problems.

Sarah-Lee Heinrichs, a 23-year-old politician for the German Green Party, said economic concerns have become far more prevalent among young people since the last European Parliament elections in 2019, when the Greens became the second largest party in Germany for the first time. In the wake of the pandemic, the full-scale war in Ukraine and the return of soaring inflation, environmentalism is no longer young people’s priority, she says.

And with economic insecurity is coming fiercer opposition to immigration, nearly a decade after the continent – and especially Germany – welcomed a record number of refugees fleeing war in Syria.

An alarming new trend began last month, after a short clip filmed on the German vacation island of Sylt was posted on X. In the video, well-dressed German youths belt out “Ausländer Raus!” (“foreigners out!”) and “Deutschland den Deutschen!” (“Germany for Germans!”) over a 1999 Eurodance beat. The chant has since swirled across the country, currently hosting the European soccer championships. Its appeal is not confined to Germans. As Italy played Spain last week, fans in the stadium could be heard giving their own rendition.

Swiping right

If that’s the “demand” side, what about the supply?

After her center-right bloc secured the most seats in the European Parliament, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen took to the stage in Brussels to give a victory speech. But her tone was more somber than victorious. She spoke of the importance of defending European values: integration, democracy and the rule of law.

How do these abstract values sound to young voters?

“Young people will double check, does that help me with any of my needs? Does it entertain me? Does it give me security? Is it fun? And if it’s none of that, it’s boring,” said Schnetzer. “If you have this TikTok logic, you’ll quickly swipe further.”

While Europe’s mainstream gives grave speeches, the far right is developing vast followings on social media platform TikTok. The RN’s clean-shaven Bardella posts videos of himself wine tasting and doing shots. Maximilian Krah, the AfD’s lead candidate going into the EU elections, offers his followers dating advice: “Don’t watch porn, don’t vote for the Greens.”

In one TikTok, Nigel Farage – often described as the “architect” of Brexit – approaches a fruit store, says “lovely melons,” raises his eyebrows and walks off. The clip has been viewed 2.5 million times.

Farage seems aware of this burgeoning market and keen to exploit it. In a recent interview, he praised misogynist online influencer Andrew Tate for being an “important voice” for “emasculated” young boys. Tate – who has racked up billions of views on TikTok – is facing charges in Romania of human trafficking and rape, which he denies.

But those who have puzzled over Tate’s appeal to young men should not be surprised that politicians making jokes about breasts enjoy similar success. The distinction between politicians and entertainment has long grown fuzzy – but for today’s young, they no longer even exist in separate spaces. Just one swipe separates the voice of a figure like Tate and the voice of a politician. We shouldn’t be surprised if here is where ideas are shaped.

Thrill of the new

It is not yet clear how deeply these far-right sympathies are held. In a trend especially pronounced among young people, voters are increasingly “not loyal to any particular party or platform,” says Foa. “They’re very volatile between one election and the next.” Just as young voters campaigned vociferously for green parties in 2019, their allegiances could switch again.

The appeal of the far right may also be dampened if its politicians begin to govern. Out of office, the far right is unable to break promises, while it can point endlessly to the mainstream’s inability to deliver. Once in government, it will prove just as disappointing. That, at least, appears to be Macron’s theory.

But the burst in support for far-right parties could spell a darker trend. In his studies of youth dissatisfaction with democracy, Foa noted a growing penchant for authoritarianism. Lacking a personal memory of life under authoritarian rule or the struggle to achieve democracy, young people are less enamored with the system than previous generations.

This success of far-right parties should be a warning to Europe’s mainstream. To Churchill’s famous quote, “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others,” we should not be surprised if young people ask in reply: “Really?”

Five Americans have been arrested in Turks and Caicos over the past six months under gun control laws that make bringing firearms or ammunition into the territory without prior permission from police a crime.

Michael Lee Evans, of Texas; Sharitta Grier, of Florida; Bryan Hagerich, of Pennsylvania; Ryan Tyler Watson, of Oklahoma; and Tyler Wenrich, of Virginia, were all accused of bringing various amounts of ammunition to Turks and Caicos, a 40-island chain southeast of the Bahamas.

All have said the ammunition recovered from their luggage was not intentionally packed, according to American lawmakers who went to the British Overseas Territory in May as part of efforts to petition for their expedited release.

Though the infractions had carried a mandatory 12-year prison sentence and fine – with reductions only in “exceptional circumstances” – a mid-June revision clarified courts may impose a fine, a custodial sentence or both in exceptional circumstances, a member of the territory’s House of Assembly said June 14.

Four Americans arrested under the law have pleaded guilty, been sentenced and returned to the US, while the last is due in court next week. Here’s what we know so far about the laws in Turks and Caicos and the affected Americans:

No constitutional right to carry firearms in Turks and Caicos

Though the territory doesn’t manufacture firearms or ammunition, the number of firearms finding their way to the islands has increased – and that’s a worry, Turks and Caicos Premier Washington Misick said.

While it is legal to fly in the US with unloaded firearms and ammunition in checked baggage, according to the Transportation Security Administration, bringing firearms or ammunition into Turks and Caicos without prior permission from police is “strictly forbidden.”

The mandatory sentence was in place to protect those on the islands, Gov. Dileeni Daniel-Selvaratnam said. Judges could use their discretion to impose reduced sentences in “exceptional circumstances,” she said.

But no special treatment should be given to any group, the Turks and Caicos premier said: “The law must be applied even-handedly.”

Even so, the “amendment was introduced to address concerns about the rigidity of the previous sentencing framework, which mandated both imprisonment and financial penalties for all firearms offenses, regardless of the specific context or severity,” House of Assembly member Edwin Astwood said in a statement.

“This often resulted in disproportionately harsh sentences that did not always fit the nature of the crime or the circumstances of the offender.”

US citizens are not being targeted, Turks and Caicos officials have said. Of the 195 people sentenced for firearm-related offenses over the past six years, only seven were US citizens, Misick has said, and none got a 12-year sentence.

While Turks and Caicos collaborates with the US in battling narcotics, terrorism and money laundering, “our laws and processes are not congruent,” Misick said.

“We are a separate sovereignty. We respect the United States’ laws and we will never think to interfere in its operation.”

Bryan Hagerich

Hagerich was the first of the five to return to the United States after he received a suspended 52-week sentence in late May, which meant he didn’t face immediate incarceration, his representatives said. He was also given a $6,700 fine.

The father of two pleaded guilty to possession of 20 rounds of ammunition, according to the Turks and Caicos government.

Hagerich paid the fine and was allowed to leave the British Overseas Territory. He got home May 24, according to Johnathan Franks, a spokesperson for the Bring Our Families Home Campaign, a group that helps wrongfully detained Americans secure release.

“We have a lot of catching up to do,” Hagerich said. “A lot of memories to make together. Just so elated to see them. They’ve been so strong through all this.”

Before Hagerich’s sentencing, his wife had packed two suitcases – one if he was sentenced to prison and another if he were allowed to return home – they said in an exclusive interview with “Good Morning America.”

“It was dark; you have no concept of time,” Hagerich said about his week-long stay in jail in Turks and Caicos. “I was with three folks that were accused of murder. It was scary.”

Tyler Wenrich

Wenrich pleaded guilty to possession of ammunition while traveling to Turks and Caicos.

He was sentenced May 28 to three weeks time-served in jail and fined $9,000, said Kimo Tynes​​​​, a Government of the Turks and Caicos Islands spokesperson said that day in a statement.

He returned home to Virginia on May 30.

The Hon. Justice Davidson Baptiste cited exceptional circumstances in Wenrich’s case, saying, “Enforcing the mandatory minimum would have been arbitrary and disproportionate, and would not serve the public interest.”

Wenrich was charged with possession of two 9 mm rounds, according to the Turks and Caicos government.

Michael Lee Evans

Evans pleaded guilty to possession of seven 9 mm rounds of ammunition and appeared before the court on April 24 via video conference.

He was allowed to return to the United States on bail due to a “severe” medical situation and to attend his June sentencing hearing virtually, said his attorney Oliver Smith, King’s Counsel.

Evans got a suspended 33-month sentence, and his attorney believes it is unlikely he will have to serve time in jail.

Ryan Tyler Watson

Watson was visiting Turks and Caicos with his wife in April to celebrate several friends’ 40th birthdays when he was charged with possession of four rounds of ammunition. He plead guilty in May.

Watson soon returned home and reunited with his family, US Sen. James Lankford, an Oklahoma Republican, said on X.

Sharitta Shinese Grier

Grier was arrested in mid-May and is awaiting trial after making bail, Tynes said​​​​.

“I didn’t know what was going to happen because I couldn’t believe it was in there,” she said. “They went through my bag and said they found rounds at the bottom of my carry-on.”

Grier was released on bail but can’t leave the island until her case concludes and must report to a local police station weekly, the station reported.

“I’m just broken,” Grier said.

Grier’s next court appearance is July 5, police said.

US lawmakers tried to free Americans

The Americans’ arrest has stoked tension between US officials and their counterparts just a few hundred miles away. A request by a US congressional delegation to the islands in May for charges against the five Americas to be dropped did not yield the desired result.

“Unfortunately, despite our willingness to work with Turks and Caicos officials to get our constituents home, we were not able to find a path forward today,” Republican US Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma said May 20 in a statement.

“It’s to the point now, (where) every third week an American is being detained wrongfully (in) Turks and Caicos,” Republican US Rep. Guy Reschenthaler told ABC News the same week.

In a House of Assembly address, the islands’ Misick said, “The (accusations) of congressman (Reschenthaler) against the government and people of the Turks and Caicos Islands are nothing more than diabolic falsehoods.”

“They were innocent mistakes,” he said. “Any other nation would handle this with a fine in sending that person back to the country of origin. Here, that’s not happening.”

On May 28, Mullin welcomed the news of Wenrich’s release, calling it “another step in the right direction,” according to a post on X.

“I again encourage TCI to address the unintended consequences of their law to prevent this from happening again.”

This story has been updated with additional information.